WORLD - The African Mirror

Dec

09

2020

Farmers protest across India against Modi’s liberalisation

WORLD

MANOJ KUMAR and RAJENDRA JADHAV FARMERS’ protests against new laws liberalising agricultural markets spread across India on Tuesday, as farm organisations called for a nationwide strike after inconclusive talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. In eastern and western states, farmers blocked roads and squatted on railway tracks, delaying hordes of people getting to work, and preventing perishable produce from reaching markets. Farmers from the northern states of Punjab and Haryana, neighbouring New Delhi, have been at the vanguard of the agitation since last month, and have set up protest camps in and around the capital. "We will not allow…

Dec

09

2020

By The African Mirror

Brazil looks for legal options to ban China’s Huawei from 5G – sources

WORLD

LISANDRA PARAGUASSU BRAZILIAN President Jair Bolsonaro's government is looking for a legal way to exclude Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co Ltd from 5G networks in Brazil, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. A presidential decree is being studied by Bolsonaro's national security adviser Augusto Heleno and the ministry of communications who are looking at security provisions that telecoms and their suppliers must comply with, the sources said. Bolsonaro, following his ally President Donald Trump, opposes Huawei on the unproven grounds that it shares confidential data with China's Communist government. But, with China being Brazil's largest trade…

Dec

09

2020

By The African Mirror

Republican U.S. Senate leader urges support for Trump’s massive UAE arms sale

WORLD

PATRICIA ZENGERLE THE U.S. Senate's Republican leader has urged lawmakers to vote against a resolution, expected as soon as this week, to block President Donald Trump's $23 billion arms sale to the United Arab Emirates, which he called a crucial partner in the first against terrorists. "It's a little baffling to suggest that, now of all times, a protest gesture with no chance of obtaining a veto-proof majority is a valuable use of the Senate's time. But above and beyond that, the strategic realities dictate that Congress should not stand in the way of this sale," Senate Majority Leader Mitch…

Sep

23

2021

By The African Mirror

China, U.S. climate pledges give COP26 boost but ‘extra mile’ sought

WORLD

BEN LIH YI CHINA and the United States have this week boosted momentum ahead of November's COP26 key climate summit with new energy and funding pledges to tackle planetary warming, but analysts said they lacked detail and far more was needed to meet global goals. Leaders of the world's two largest economies announced separate measures at the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) Tuesday, with China pledging to end overseas coal financing and the U.S. saying it would double climate funding for developing countries. The announcements were hailed as important ahead of the COP26 U.N. climate talks in Glasgow, but green groups…

Sep

23

2021

By The African Mirror

Get a grip, PM Johnson tells France after submarine row

WORLD

BRITISH Prime Minister Boris Johnson has told France to get a grip and give allies in the United States and Australia a break over a row about a trilateral nuclear submarine deal that tore up a separate French contract. The new defence partnership between Britain, the United States and Australia was announced last week and will give Australia access to nuclear powered submarine technology. France accused U.S. President Joe Biden of stabbing it in the back and acting like his predecessor Donald Trump after Paris was pushed aside from a historic defence export contract to supply Australia with submarines. Paris…

Sep

23

2021

By The African Mirror

Carlos the Jackal seeks to reduce life sentence for deadly 1974 grenade attack

WORLD

CARLOS the Jackal, the leftist militant who carried out attacks across the globe in the 1970s and 1980s, opened a bid in a French court on Wednesday to reduce the life sentence he had been given for a deadly grenade attack on a Paris shop in 1974. The self-declared "professional revolutionary", whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, has been behind bars in France since he was captured and spirited out of Sudan by French special forces in 1994. He was found guilty in 2017 over a grenade attack in 1974 on a shop on Paris's Champs Elysees, the Drugstore…

Sep

22

2021

By The African Mirror

At U.N., Biden promises ‘relentless diplomacy,’ not Cold War

WORLD

TREVOR HUNNICUTT and STEVE HOLLAND U.S. President Joe Biden has mapped out a new era of vigorous competition without a new Cold War despite China's ascendance during his first United Nations address, promising military restraint and a robust fight against climate change. The United States will help resolve crises from Iran to the Korean Peninsula to Ethiopia, Biden told the annual U.N. General Assembly gathering. The world faces a "decisive decade," Biden said, one in which leaders must work together to combat a raging coronavirus pandemic, global climate change and cyber threats. He said the United States will double its…

Dec

08

2020

By The African Mirror

Indian wedding takes on otherworldly feel after bride tests positive for COVID-19

WORLD

TRADITIONAL Indian wedding finery gave way to hazmat suits and masks in a remote north Indian village, after the bride tested positive for the coronavirus just hours before her marriage, a local health official said. The couple, whose names were not made public, decided to go ahead with the ceremony on Sunday in the courtyard of the COVID quarantine centre in Baran in the western state of Rajasthan - their protective gear giving it an otherworldly feel. Under a bright red canopy and in front of the holy fire, the bride and groom exchanged garlands wearing matching blue hazmat suits,…

Dec

08

2020

By The African Mirror

Swiss villagers face 10-year evacuation in $1 bln bomb removal plan

WORLD

JOHN MILLER A Swiss village where a World War Two-era munitions dump exploded 73 years ago will be evacuated for about a decade while the remaining bombs are carted off, part of a $1 billion plan approved by the government. A series of explosions near Mitholz, deep in the Swiss Alps south of Bern, began just before midnight on December 19, 1947 at an adjacent Swiss military weapons dump. Nine people died as the shockwaves shook the valley and debris rained down on homes, destroying the town centre and its railway station. While Mitholz was quickly rebuilt, some 3,500 tonnes…

Dec

08

2020

By The African Mirror

EXCLUSIVE -U.S. preparing new sanctions on Chinese officials over Hong Kong crackdown – sources

WORLD

HUMEYRA PAMUK and MATT SPETALNICK THE United States is preparing to impose sanctions on at least a dozen Chinese officials over their alleged role in Beijing's disqualification of elected opposition legislators in Hong Kong, according to three sources, including a U.S. official familiar with the matter. The move, which could come as soon as Monday, will target officials from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as President Donald Trump's administration keeps up pressure on Beijing in his final weeks in office. President-elect Joe Biden takes over on January 20. The State Department and the White House did not immediately respond to…